WLUML has received an urgent appeal for solidarity and pressure to be placed on the Italian government to secure the safe release of Italian feminist-pacifist journalist Guiliana Sgrena, kidnapped in Iraq.

In January 2004, WLUML urged you to join Iraqi women's efforts and take action to oppose the Iraqi Governing Council's (IGC) 'Resolution 137' dated 29 December 2003 that proposed the introduction of Sharia law in personal status matters and to cancel all laws which are incompatible with this decision. It was reported on 27th February 2004, that the IGC has cancelled resolution 137.

WLUML strongly urges you to join Iraqi women's efforts and take action to oppose the Iraqi Governing Council's (IGC) 'Resolution 137' dated 29 December 2003 that proposes the introduction of Sharia law in personal status matters and to cancel all laws which are incompatible with this decision.

She ran from the table and locked herself in the bathroom. He had had no idea, he said later, weeping out loud, that what she was doing was climbing out the window.

I remember going to their apartment the day after her death for ‘aza (condolence). She had survived for only a few moments on the pavement, a crowd forming round her as she moaned in great pain, and then had died, no one she knew at her side. She was buried the same day. She was forty-two.

Issues related to the ‘public sphere’,1 such as laws which concern work or political participation, have undergone many developments. Personal status, however, has remained the last bastion of male dominance. It has become, in many contexts (e.g. Muslim countries or minority or immigrant communities), a symbol of religious/cultural differences and closely intertwined with the group religious/national identity. It has remained, in most cases, under the authority of the religious institutions and any attempts at reform always spur strong reactions.

On 11 November 2003, the High Court of Appeal decided not to transfer the case to the Constitutional Court but that the case would continue to be dealt with in the High Penal Court. The next hearing date has not yet been announced.